All Songs Considered

8:03 am

Thu June 20, 2013

First Watch: Majical Cloudz, 'Bugs Don't Buzz'

Cockroaches and beetles slither through a miniature world in a new video from Majical Cloudz.

Courtesy of the artist

I won't lie to you. The new video from Majical Cloudz, for the Canadian electro-pop duo's song "Bugs Don't Buzz," is kinda gross. There are scenes so strange and slimy, I'm not even sure what's going on. But, set to what is an undeniably gorgeous, if plaintive love song, the imagery from director Gordon von Steiner is strangely transfixing. I couldn't stop watching.

Massive cockroaches and beetles slither through a miniaturized world, while a mysterious figure rises from the "wet darkness" with a torch in hand. Soon the tiny little world is completely scorched and not even the roaches survive.

Majical Cloudz frontman Devon Welsh says he wanted the video for "Bugs Don't Buzz" to be abstract, without an obvious narrative. "I wrote a short treatment that described some of the shots that we eventually used in the video," he tells us via email. "Specifically the image of the bugs crawling around in miniature sets was something that I thought could be really cool. The scale of the sets allows the camera to depict the bugs in a completely non-human world. The rest of the imagery followed from the original concept of trying to remove humanity from the video's frame of reference. [Director] Gordon [von Steiner] ran with that concept and developed all of these amazingly alien scenes. Together, I think we hope it paints a picture that is abstract but clear in its emotional intentions."

Welsh originally started Majical Cloudz as a solo project, before welcoming synth programmer Matthew Otto. "Bugs Don't Buzz" is from their latest album, Impersonator.